Tumblr as a Medium to Improve Students’ Writing Skills

383 Journal of Applied Sciences Research, 8(1): 383-389, 2012 ISSN 1819-544X This is a refereed journal and all articles are professionally screened and reviewed ORIGINAL ARTICLES Tumblr as a Medium to Improve Students’ Writing Skills 1 Melor Md Yunus and 2Hadi Salehi 1 2 Faculty of Education, University Kebangsaan Malaysia. Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Isfahan, Iran. ABSTRACT The implementation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become one of the vital current phenomena especially in education. Generally, the integration of social networks into learning has proven to enhance students’ participation which has led them into an interactive learning. In language teaching especially in an ESL context, such integration is needed to enhance students’ interest towards language learning and motivate them to improve their language skills. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to examine the use of Tumblr as a medium to improve secondary school students’ writing skills and second, to identify the factors which support the effectiveness of using Tumblr as a medium. To achieve the purpose of the study, a validated questionnaire was administered to 30 teacher trainees who were randomly selected from TESL undergraduate students in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). The findings showed that about two thirds of the respondents agreed that Tumblr, as one of the social networks, can be used as an effective medium in teaching writing skills. Moreover, the majority of the surveyed teacher trainees stated that different features in Tumblr can motivate and help students to learn interactively via internet. However, some limitations might prevent teachers from using Tumblr as an effective tool in teaching and learning. Key words: Tumblr, ICT, Writing skills, Social network, Teacher trainees. Introduction Mircblogging refers to a kind of blogging that lets the users write messages less than 200 characters about their daily lives and send them to friends or other interested observers via instant messaging, text messaging, email or the web (Java et al, 2007). Microblogging, according to DeVoe (2009), is different from regular blogging because freedom and brevity are the main characteristics of microblogging whereas traditional blogging focuses on established topics and uses stylized and lengthy prose. Microblogs are viewed as short pieces of information that do not require the author to devote or plan as much time in as a traditional blog. Sakaki et al (2010) state that another characteristic of microblogging is that it usually occurs in real-time and that is why it differs from traditional blogging. Users often add or update information regarding what they are doing either while they are doing it or soon after. The real-time feature of microblogging often allows daily news to spread faster than ever before. Java et al. (2007) pointed out that with the increasing trend for a faster mode of communication, mircoblogging can fulfill this need. They believe that mircoblogging encourages creating shorter posts and it decreases the users’ requirement of time and thought investment for content generation. Boyd et al, (2010) believe that a fast paced conversation environment can be emerged through mircoblogging because it requires a little effort and time investment. Posting the updates, ideas, and simple notifications is the power of microblogs. This idea is supported by Ebner and Maurer (2009), as they said this application can expand the types of microblogging by expressing the communication aspect. Moreover, microblogs can encourage students to be more expressive and develop their creativity in writing as well as can train the students to judge and review on their friends’ quality of essays and blog’s writing. Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Plurk, Yammer and Tumblr are the most popular microblogging platforms; however, this study just focuses on the use of Tumblr as a medium to improve secondary school students’ writing skills and to identify the factors which support the effectiveness of using Tumblr as a medium in teaching writing skill. Literature Review: Tumblr Features: Tumblr, founded in 2007, is a micro blogging website that is becoming increasingly popular in the Web 2.0 world. This platform allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their “tumblelog”, a Corresponding Author: Hadi Salehi, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Isfahan, Iran E-mail: hadisalehi1358@yahoo.com 384 J. Appl. Sci. Res., 8(1): 383-389, 2012 short-form blog. Tumblr gives users the easiest and fastest way to blog, whether they want to publish text, audio or video material (Matteson, 2011). Users can follow other tumblelogs, just like on Twitter, and their updates appear in one stream on the Dashboard. The “like” button lets one user tells another that they like his or her content, and the “reblog” button easily reposts content from one tumblelog onto another, providing positive feedback. Users also can comment on each other’s post by having ‘Disqus’ application in Tumblr. These features can attract the students to interact and write more in the form of blogging in Tumblr. According to Matteson (2011), what Tumblr offers is an unmatched ease of use. Creating an account on Tumblr is as easy as breathing. An email address, a password, and the URL for the new blog (e.g., newsweek. tumblr.com) are three pieces of information required to create an account on Tumblr. Even, there is no profile to fill out, no likes or dislikes to list, and nowhere to even enter a name. That is why there are also no advertisements or promotions on the sidebars (Matteson, 2011). Some users view Tumblr as a platform where Blogger, Twitter, and Facebook meet (Matteson, 2011). A blog on Tumblr is similar to any other blog in that the site owner uses it to publish opinions, thoughts, interests and experiences, and readers can then post comments and responses. However, Tumblr changes this way by adding interesting social networking features to the website. For example, as on Twitter, Tumblr users can follow other blogs, see who is following them, and “reblog” the entries they like from other blogs. Similar to Facebook, Tumblr users can also “like” other blog posts. Therefore, the combination of social networking and blogging provides a space that is both creative and collaborative (Matteson, 2011). However, Tumblr is regarded as one part of the emerging movement to curate the web and to shrink it down to what is the word of mouth (Meltzer, 2010). Tumblr is relatively young in the world of the web so that it can change or be changed by its growing popularity. Benefits of Tumblr: Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and Tumblr have different significant functions. According to Donath and Boyd (2004), people can expand their communications with others through social media such as Tumblr. They state that social networks are sources of emotional and financial support, and of information about jobs, other people and the world at large. Marquart (2010) believes that Tumblr can benefit users in these ways through functions such as reblogging and the Ask Box. These two functions help users to create many communities within Tumblr. Tumblr helps users to have more than one contributor to a blog. This feature also helps users to create more communities and it is useful when it comes to regularly updating a blog. In fact, it means that the effort of producing content can be divided among an unlimited amount of contributors (Marquart, 2010). Therefore, Tumblr users can easily be connected to bloggers with the same interests to create a specific Tumblr page dedicated to an interest such as novels, poems, movies, or even fashion. According to Marquart (2010), Tumblr can allow users to submit posts to blogs that are not their own even when a blog is accessed by only one user. Then the posts are screened by the blog owner. Submissions are posted if they are relevant to the blog category and fit the overall feel of the blog. The credit will be given to the user who submitted the post, usually by way of linking to his or her webpage (Marquart, 2010). Methodology: This study employed a questionnaire survey to measure the perceptions of teacher trainees on the effectiveness of Tumblr as a medium to improve secondary school students’ writing skills. The participants consisted of 30 TESL undergraduate students in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) who were randomly selected from the TESL UKM students, regardless of the year of studies, gender and ethnicity. The rationale of having this kind of respondents is to get the authentic responses from the future English teachers about teaching writing to secondary school students. The participants were familiar with the use of ICT since most of them utilize the Internet for the purposes of gathering information, email, social networking etc. Besides, we would like to know their perspectives about using social networks such as Tumblr in writing, since they are among young generation who use more social networks compared to elder generation. The participants ranged from 21 to 25 years of age. The questionnaire consisted of four sections. Section A, including three items, elicited demographic information regarding age, gender and Malaysian University English Test (MUET) Band of the respondents. Section B consisted of five items and was designed to elicit teacher trainees’ knowledge of social networks. Section C, including seven items, was designed to elicit teacher trainees’ perceptions on the effectiveness of Tumblr as a medium to improve students’ writing skills. The items in this section were closely related to the Tumblr integration in teaching and learning process, and they were designed based upon four-point Likert scale of agreement, where one = strongly disagree, two = disagree, three = agree and four = strongly agree. The fourpoint Likert scale was employed as it is one of the most commonly accepted Likert scales in the education field 385 J. Appl. Sci. Res., 8(1): 383-389, 2012 (Melor Md Yunus, 2007; Melor Md Yunus, Salehi, and Kashefian-Naeeini, 2011). Section D included an openended question to allow the teacher trainees the freedom to give their views regarding their own experiences in using Tumblr and the integration and implementation of Tumblr into the teaching and learning process. In the analysis phase of the study, frequencies and percentages for each item were calculated and presented in tables. Results and Discussion Demographic Data Section A of the questionnaire dealt with the respondents’ background information. The respondents were between the age of 21 years and 25 years. More than one third of the respondents (36.6 %) were 21 and 22 years old (see Table 1). Less than half of them (46.6 %) were 23 years old and 16.6 % of them were 24 and 25 years old. Fifty three percent of the respondents were female and 47% of them were male. There was no equality in the number of male and female respondents because the respondents were chosen randomly. Moreover, out of 30 respondents, 70% of them had obtained band 3-4, and 30% of them had achieved band 5-6. Table 1: Demographic characteristics of the respondents. Items Variables Age 21 years 22 years 23 years 24 years 25 years Gender Male Female MUET Band 1-2 3-4 5-6 Frequency 4 7 14 2 3 14 16 0 21 9 Percent (%) 13.3 23.3 46.6 6.6 10.0 47.0 53.0 0.0 70.0 30.0 Knowledge Of Social Networks: Section B of the questionnaire was designed based on basic questions about blogging specifically Tumblr. When the respondents were asked about having a blog, more than three-fourths of the respondents (77 %) said that they have a blog and less than one-fourth of them (23 %) stated that they do not have a blog (see Table 2). Moreover, the majority of the teacher trainees (73 %) have one or two blogs and one-fifths of them have three or even more blogs. In addition, when the participants were asked about having a Tumblr account, 60% of them stated that they have a Tumblr account and 40% said that they do not have a Tumblr account. Table 2: Teacher trainees’ knowledge of social networks. Items Do you have a blog? How many blogs do you have? Do you have a Tumblr account? Responses Yes No None 1-2 3 and above Yes No Frequency 23 7 2 22 6 18 12 Percent (%) 77.0 23.0 7.0 73.0 20.0 60.0 40.0 Less than half of the respondents (46.6 %) claimed that they blog for pleasure and more than one-third of them (36.6 %) blog for sharing ideas with friends and expressing their feelings (see Table 3 and Figure 1). Moreover, less than one-fifth of the respondents (16.6 %) stated that they blog in order to improve their writing skills. The results show that the students usually blog for aesthetic purposes rather than educational purposes because only 16.6% of the respondents answered that they blog in order to improve their writing skills. Therefore, this study might be a stepping stone to aware students that applications such as Tumblr can be used to improve their writing skills as well. When the respondents were asked about the features in Tumblr that could help them improve writing, onesixth of them (16.6 %) claimed that reblog other people’s post can improve writing. Less than one-fourth of the respondents (23.3 %) believed that posting pictures, text and link can be effective in writing. In addition, about 60 percent of the teacher-trainees stated that Tumblr can help them improve writing through application questions “Asking questions” to people and commenting on other’s post. The results show that there is only small range of differences between the features that is between 16.6% and 33.3%, which actually shows that all these features have their own significance in enhancing writing skills. 3886 J. Appl. Sci. Res., 8(1): 383--389, 2012 Table 3: Teacher trainees’ knowledge of social networks. n R Responses Items For what pu urpose do you blog? Im mproving writing skills S Sharing ideas with friends / expressinng feelings F pleasure For What featuures in Tumblr thatt you think R Reblog other peoplle’s post could help to improve writingg? P Posting pictures / text / link T Through applicatioon “Asking questio ons” to people C Commenting on otther’s post Frequency 5 11 14 5 Percent (%) 16.6 36.6 46.6 16.6 7 10 8 23.3 33.3 26.6 What featuress in Tumblr thaat you think could help to impprove w writing? 26.6% Reblog othher people's post 16.6% Posting pictures/texxt/link 2 23.3% 33.3% Through appplication questions " Asking questions" to people i writinng. Fig. 1: Feaatures in Tumbblr that help to improve Tumblr Inttegration In Teeaching And Leearning Processs: This section was dessigned to elicit teacher traineees’ perceptionss on the effectivveness of Tum mblr as a mediuum to improvee students’ writing skills. When W the respoondents were asked a about thhe suitability of Tumblr, aboout three-fourtths of them (773.3 %) disagrreed with the sstatement “Tumblr is suitable for beginneer writers onlyy”; however, more m than one--fourth of the respondents r aggreed that Tum mblr is only suiitable for beginnner writers (see Table 4). All the responndents agreed that the studdents feel encoouraged and m motivated to write w when theey received comments c and feedback on their blogs. M Moreover, all the surveyed teacher traineees believed thhat Tumblr enccourages brainnstorming activ vity among studdents. When the respondennts were requeested to express their percep ptions of Tum mblr in helpingg the students to organize iddeas, the majorrity of them (883.3 %) believeed that Tumblrr helps studentss to organize ideas before theey start writinng and most off them (86.7 %) % agreed that T Tumblr gets stu udents to be innvolved in creaative and criticcal thinking. Moreover, M almo ost all the respondents believved that Tumblrr encourages inndependent leaarning especiallly outside off the classroom m and it is ann interesting aand interactivee medium to eenhance writinng skills amonng students. Table 4: Teacher trainees’ percceptions of the Tum mblr integration inn teaching and learrning. Statements Strrongly disagree + Disagree Agree + Strongly agree Frequ uency Percentt Frequency Percent Tumblr is suitable s for beginnner writers only. 2 22 73.3 8 26.6 Students feeel encouraged annd motivated wheen they received ccomments and feedbacck on their blogs. Tumblr enccourages brainstorrming activity amoong students. Tumblr hellps students to orgaanize ideas before they start writing. Tumblr getts students to be innvolved in creativee and critical thinkking. Tumblr enncourages indepeendent learning especially e outsidee of the classroom Tumblr is an a interesting and interactive mediuum to enhance writting skills among studdents. 0 0.0 30 100.0 0 5 4 1 0.0 16.7 13.3 3.3 30 25 26 29 100.0 83.3 86.7 96.7 2 6.7 28 3.3 The fiindings of this section can bee grouped into 3 main aspectts which are m motivation, writting skills aspeect and classro oom learning aspect. a It is obbvious that Tum mblr is suitablle for beginnerr learners and for intermediaate and advancce learners as well. Howeveer, there are addvantages for beginner b learneers because stu udents can wriite short senteences in Tumbllr. They do nott necessarily have to write lo ong sentences, bbut it depends on the studentts’ 3887 J. Appl. Sci. Res., 8(1): 383--389, 2012 w Others also a can help through t givingg comments annd sharing ideaas; therefore, sttudents will feeel ability to write. encouragedd to generate id deas to write loonger. The sttudents will feeel motivated annd encouraged because they know k their wriiting is read an nd acknowledgeed by others. The commentss and feedbackks give some ssorts of motivaation to the students to write.. Tumblr can get g the studentts to be involv ved in creative and critical thhinking becausse the students have the chan nce to state theeir point of viiew on any isssue discussed by posting com mments in thee ‘discuss’ appplication. Theyy can argue wiith their friendds who post a topic, picturre or video inn the Tumblr. They also caan ‘reblog’ po ost and add anny interesting information crreatively to thee post they likee. h a belief migght Almosst all of the reespondents agrreed that Tumbblr encouragess independent learning. Such refer to thee students’ intterests becausee nowadays thee students lovee to learn throough technologgy on their ow wn. They spend d most of the time t in front of the computerr, and writing through t Tumbllr actually can encourage theem to do indeppendent learninng outside of the t classroom as a long as therre is internet acccess. It showss that learning is not limited d only to the claassroom. Moreeover, the majoority of the resppondents agreeed that Tumblrr is an interestinng and interacctive applicatioon that enhancces writing skiills among the students. Thiss belief might refer to the faact that this appplication provides interactivee way of learniing that attracts the students’ interest to wriite in Tumblr. The Usagee Of Tumblr In Teaching Andd Learning: uestion to find the relevance of o implementinng The laast section of thhe questionnairre included an open ended qu Tumblr intto teaching annd learning proocess in the classroom conteext, especially in teaching writing w skill. Thhe respondentts were asked whether they agree with thee integration off Tumblr into teaching writin ng and how annd why Tumb blr helps or hinders improvingg the writing skkill. As Figgure 2 shows, 77% 7 of the respondents agreeed with the inttegration of Tuumblr into the classroom, c whiile 23% believved that Tumbblr is not suitabble to be integgrated into the teaching and learning proceess, especially in teaching writing w skill in the t classroom. Is it relevant to integrate annd implement thhe usage of Tuumblr into the teaching and leaarning process in i the classroom context, especially in tteaching writinng? Yes or no? 23% Yes 77% No Fig. 2: Teaachers’ percepttions of integraating Tumblr innto the teaching and learning process. One part p of the opeen-ended quesstion elicited the t teacher traainees’ opinionns regarding the t relevance of implementting Tumblr as a part of the teaching matterials that cann be used in teaching writting skill in thhe classroom. The majority of the responddents agreed thhat Tumblr is relevant r to be implemented in i the classrooom and does help h in teachingg writing skill. Figure 3 show ws the reasons behind the resppondents’ opinnions. More thaan one-third of o the surveyeed teacher trainnees (37%) sttated that using Tumblr as a medium in teaching t writinng increases thhe students’ leearning motivattion. This mighht be due to the features of T Tumblr that hellp the students to get some innspiration and constructive feeedbacks on thheir writings. Besidees, one-third of the respondeents (33%) beliieved that Tum mblr really helpps in improvinng writing wheere students get to share ideeas, thoughts and also somee other materiials in learningg via sharing link. Moreoveer, dents to do acctive brainstorm ming and help ps in generatinng ideas regarrding a topic of Tumblr enncourages stud discussion among them. About one-fiftth of the responndents (22%) pointed p out thaat Tumblr enhaances interactivve learning in n the classroom m where studennts can particippate actively in n teaching and learning proceess, compared to the teacherr-centered wayy of learning. Just 4% of thhe respondents viewed that thhe features off Tumblr help in improving writing, especcially for beginnner writers. W With the same percentage off 4%, the respo ondents believeed that Tumbllr helps studen nts to learn morre new words aand enrich theirr vocabulary knnowledge. 3888 J. Appl. Sci. Res., 8(1): 383--389, 2012 H Tumblr heelps improve writing? How w 4% 4% % Increase m motivation 37% % 33% % Interactivve learning 22% Sharing ideas, braainstorming, geene rate ideass Fig. 3: Teaachers’ percepttions of the waays Tumblr helpps to improve writing. w On thee other hand, in response too the open-endded question, some s of the reespondents statted a number of reasons thaat Tumblr should not be integrated into teeaching writingg skills. They believed that Tumblr is nott a useful meddium for teachhing writing and a is not suitable to be em mployed in the classroom as well. From thhe responses, five main reassons were extraacted. First, am mong the oppoonents of usingg Tumblr in thee classroom, leess than one-thhird of them (229%) believed that t students m may get easily distracted d with other features of Tumblr itseelf and some features f of the Internet. Second, the same weight w of respoonses (29%) shhowed that som me of the schoools are not weell equipped with w enough facilities f such as computer labs l and compputers. Moreover, there is no n guarantee that t students inn rural areas have h access to internet. Furthhermore, perhaaps some studeents do not havve the skills of o using such teechnology as thhey do not have the facilities at home. The neext three reaso ons share the saame weight off percentage. Among A the oppponents of usinng Tumblr, 14 % of them beelieved that Tu umblr has sim mplified settings which are noot much helpfu ful in teaching writing. This is perhaps duue to the featuures of re-bloggging others’ pposts and instaant posting of pictures, quottes and so fortth. These opponents think thhat some writing tasks shoulld be involvedd in the processs of teaching writing. w Besidees, some studeents or even teaachers might have h insufficiennt knowledge of o Tumblr. As iit is a new application, perhapps many peopple do not know w how to use its i functions annd features. Thhus, the limitedd knowledge off users regardinng Tumblr coould be a barrrier preventingg teachers to integrate it as a an alternativve in teachingg writing skillls. Moreover, some of the reespondents statted that Tumbllr may not be effective e in teacching writing because b studennts may use innappropriate laanguage in theeir writing. Thee students willl tend to use shhort forms of language, rathher than standaard language th hat should be used u in an apppropriate writinng. Perhaps theese opponents of using Tumbblr feel that thhe usage of short forms of lan nguage will inflluence studentss’ writing skilll in the future. W Tumblr does not help impprove writing?? Why Easily disstracted with other feattures on Interneet 14% No Internnet access 29% 14% Use of shortforms 14% 29% Limited kknowledge of Tumblr Simplifiedd setting of Tumblr Fig. 4: Teaachers’ percepttions of the reaasons that Tum mblr is not helpfful. Conclusion n: Tumbllr is becoming g increasingly popular p for some reasons, most m notably itss accessibility to users and thhe important factor of community interacction. This papper aimed to examine e the use of Tumblr as a medium to improve sttudents’ writing skills and identify the factoors which supp port the effectiiveness of usinng Tumblr in thhe classroom. The majority of the surveyeed respondentss stated that Tuumblr can be used u as an effective medium in teaching writing w and hellps students inn enhancing theeir writing skills. Tumblr heelps students to o organize ideeas before they start writingg and it gets students to bee involved in creative and critical c thinkinng. Tumblr also encouragess independent learning espeecially outside of the classro oom and it is an interesting g and interactivve 389 J. Appl. Sci. Res., 8(1): 383-389, 2012 medium to enhance writing skills among students. The features of Tumblr can increase the students’ learning motivation and help them to get some inspiration and constructive feedbacks on their writings. Tumblr also helps in improving writing where students can share ideas, thoughts and some other materials via sharing link. Moreover, Tumblr encourages students to do active brainstorming and helps in generating ideas regarding a topic of discussion among them. However, the limitations of Tumblr, for instance, the internet access which is not accessible in all places especially in rural areas, the tendency to get distracted by other things while online and teacher’s lack of knowledge in technology caused the teaching and learning via Tumblr not really effective in some ways. References Boyd, D., S. Golder and G. Lotan, 2010. Tweet, Tweet, Retweet: Conversational Aspects of Retweeting on Twitter. HICSS-43. IEEE: Kauai, HI, January 6. < http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/HICSS.2010.412> DeVoe, K.M., 2009. 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